Green tip: Hotel recycling saves lives

Hotels have always engaged in many kinds of recycling for various reasons from recycling aluminum cans to save money to recycling plastic bags to prevent injuries to sea turtles. Today, two national organizations are helping hotels reduce waste and reach out to people in need by recycling soap and bed linens to save the lives of people around the globe. Blurring the line between sustainability and charity, they collect donated items for recycling and give them new life.

www.CleanTheWorld.org

The first organization is Clean the World, a nonprofit charitable organization that recycles soap, shampoo and lotion discarded by hotels and distributes these essential items in underdeveloped countries where 3.5 million people, mostly children, die per year due to diarrheal disease and acute respiratory illness. The organization estimates that cleaning hands can reduce deaths by up to 60 percent. The donations are likely to make a huge impact in places like Haiti where a $1 bar of soap is inaccessible to a population with an average income of $2 per day.

So far, Clean the World is working with about 100 hotels and employs a long-term men’s recovery home called Central Care Mission in Orlando to collect, recycle and distribute the soap. The recycling process involves an innovative method of sanitation to ensure the soap that is donated is completely safe and pathogen free, even if partially used.

Bed linens that once provided hotel guests comfort in their plush beds now are providing shelter to homeless individuals across the nation thanks to Green Recoverings, an organization that was featured on “Oprah” for its recycling program.

www.GreenRecoverings.org

Green Recoverings accepts donations of gently used items such as blankets, bedding, towels, furniture and kitchenware from hotels and places them with homeless shelters. The effort diverts these items from landfills and provides lifesaving comfort to individuals in need on cold nights.

While data on Lee County hotel recycling efforts has not been collected, industry partners are encouraged to participate in such efforts by contacting these organizations, both of which provide outreach opportunities on their Web sites: www.CleanTheWorld.org and www.GreenRecoverings.org.

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